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Rebecca Winspeare McCarty

By | Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Rebecca Winspeare McCarty was the youngest child of William Winspeare Rogers McCarty and Eleanor Heagarty of Cork City, one of three sisters (Eleanor, Rachel, and Rebecca) who taught school in Kinsale, Co. Cork, in the 19th century. The eldest, Eleanor Winspeare, was born in 1836 in Cork City; but by 1844 their father, William, a school master, had moved the family to Glantane near Mallow in north Co. Cork where he ran a school endowed by Lady Cotter. His youngest children were baptised in Kilshannig Parish, Rachel in 1846, Rebecca in 1852. The sisters most probably learned to be schoolteachers under his supervision. We do not know why or exactly when they moved to Kinsale, but it must have been before 1873 when Rebecca died and was buried in St. Multose churchyard. Her sister Eleanor is listed in the 1886 Munster Postal Directory as Head Teacher of the National Infant School. She and her remaining sister continued to live in the school building at what was then #17 Higher Fisher St., now Upper O'Connell St., until their deaths, Rachel in 1907 and Eleanor in 1915.